A HISTORY OF ST JOHN
1. In the Beginning.
Once upon a time, and a long time ago, Christian people called ‘pilgrims’ would travel to the city of Jerusalem to see where Jesus lived. The road to Jerusalem was hard and dangerous. When the pilgrims finally reached Jerusalem, they really needed a rest.
Map of the routes taken by pilgrims of the First Crusade, 1095 - 1099 AD
Six hundred years after Jesus was born, a Pope named Gregory the Great asked Abbot Probus to set up a hospice in Jerusalem. There the pilgrims could rest if they were hurt, tired or sick.
Before long, some Saracen Moslems took control of Jerusalem and all the towns surrounding it. The Moslems let the hospice in Jerusalem stay open. The great Emperor Charlemagne was even allowed to make the hospice bigger. But in the year 1010, an evil Caliph called El Hakim burnt the hospice down.
Thirteen years later (after El Hakim had died), some merchants bought the place where the old hospice had been. These merchants came from the port of Amalfi. They built a church and a hospital in Jerusalem and they named the church after St John the Almoner. The monks who worked there wore the badge of Amalfi on their clothes. The badge of the town of Amalfi had an eight-pointed cross on it, like this:
The gold tarì of Amalfi, Roger II (as king, after 1140).
2. The Order of Hospitallers.
With a hospital and a church waiting for them in Jerusalem, Christian pilgrims had an even better place to rest. But the Moslems who ruled the area around Jerusalem treated the Christians badly. People in England and Europe were upset. They decided to go on a crusade against the Moslems.
In the year 1099, three big armies came together and attacked the Moslems in Jerusalem. The Moslems stood on the city wall and threw rocks at the crusaders. A monk from the hospital in Jerusalem was standing beside the Moslems. His name was Brother Gerard, and he threw down loaves of bread and buns instead! The crusaders were glad to eat because they were very hungry. When the crusaders won the battle, Brother Gerard took the hurt men into his hospital and made them feel better.
The crusaders were very thankful and they gave Brother Gerard lots of money and land, including an old monastery where his monks could live. The monastery was part of a church named after St John the Baptist, who is our patron saint today.
St John the Almoner St John the Baptist Blessed Gerard Raymond du Puy
Brother Gerard re-organised his monks into a new order: the Order of Hospitallers. These monks now wore black clothes with the white cross of Amalfi on them.
In the year 1113, a Pope called Paschal II took the Order of Hospitallers under his protection. The Order of Hospitallers was now an official group, dedicated to healing sick and injured people, much like we do today!
England: In the year 1144, Jordan de Bricett and his wife gave the Order of Hospitallers some land near “the Well of the Parish Clerks of the City of London”. This place is now called Clerkenwell. The Order built its English Headquarters (or Priory) there. The Priory’s Gate House is still our headquarters today!
A Knight Hospitaller
3. The Knights of Jerusalem.
In the year 1120, Brother Gerard died and a soldier called Raymond du Puy took his place. He gave his monks new rules on how to work and behave. He also became the Order’s first Master.
Raymond du Puy saw how Moslem robbers were killing Christian pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem. He gathered together some soldiers and knights, and he sent them to protect the pilgrims on their journey. These Knights of St John grew in number and became very strong. But the Saracen Moslems were stronger.
In the year 1187, a leader of the Moslems named Saladin called for a holy war, or jihad, against the Christians. The Moslem armies beat the Christian armies, and hundreds of knights were killed. The Order of Hospitallers had to leave Jerusalem. They went to Margat, and then to the port city of Acre.
The Order stayed in Acre for a hundred years, but the Moslems kept winning battles. In the year 1291, the Moslems grabbed the city of Acre and killed almost everyone there. Six Knights of St John and their wounded Master were able to escape. They sailed to the island of Cyprus and the port of Limassol.
There, the Knights called for reinforcements from Europe. The Order of St John built ships to fight Moslem pirates on the sea. In less than twenty years, the Order of St John grew strong again. They had a new hospital, a new convent and a whole navy of ships and sailors.
4. The Knights of Rhodes.
The Knights of St John were unhappy on the island of Cyprus. They had a big navy now, and the king of Cyprus was afraid of them.
The nearby island of Rhodes was a home for pirates. When the Knights of St John found this out, they sailed to Rhodes and attacked it in the year 1310. The chased the pirates away and made a home for themselves on Rhodes.
The Knights spent their time chasing pirates and raiding rich Moslem ships. They built a palace, some strong forts and a huge hospital on the island. One Knight, called Dieudonné de Gozon, even killed a dragon there!
A Knight of Rhodes The Order’s navy were both pirate hunters and privateers.
Meanwhile, a nation of Moslems called the Ottoman Turks was growing larger and larger. By 1453, the Ottoman Turks controlled all the lands around the island of Rhodes. In the year 1480, a Sultan called Mahomet the Great landed seventy thousand Moslem soldiers against five thousand Christian fighters. A great battle was fought. The Moslem Turks managed to break a wall down but the Grand Master of St John led a force against the invaders. Some Moslem soldiers said that the Grand Master was being helped by a heavenly army, led by Saint John himself! The Moslem Turks were so scared that they all ran away. The Christians won.
But not for long. In the year 1522, a new Sultan called Suleiman landed 200,000 Moslem soldiers against 5,000 Christian troops. The Christian forces, led by Grand Master Philip de L’Isle Adam, held out for six months. In the battles, the Moslem Turks lost twenty thousand men.
Suleiman was so angry that he fired the commander of his Turkish army! After six months though, the Grand Master of St John had to surrender. His troops were tired and sick. The Grand Master didn’t want the ordinary people of Rhodes to be killed.
Suleiman thought the Knights of St John were great fighters. He was kind to them and he let the Knights leave the island of Rhodes in peace.
Famous People...
Fulk de Villaret: The Master of St John who captured the island of Rhodes.
Dieudonné de Gozon: The knight who killed a dragon on the island of Rhodes. He later became a very popular Grand Master of St John.
Peter d’Aubusson: The Grand Master who chased the Moslem Turks away during the First Siege of Rhodes. The Turks said he was helped by Saint John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary and an army of angels.
Philip de L’Isle Adam: The Grand Master who held out against the Turks in the Second Siege of Rhodes. He had to surrender, but he found a new home for the Order of St John on the Island of Malta...
5. The Knights of Malta.
The Knights of St John were homeless for seven years. Finally, Emperor Charles V of Europe gave the island of Malta to the Order of St John.
In the year 1530, the Knights sailed to Malta. They built castles and forts straight away because Malta was again being surrounded by Ottoman Turks. Malta was seen by the Turks as the first step to conquering Italy and the Pope’s headquarters in Rome. In the year 1565, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent decided to attack Malta. This was the same Suleiman who had chased the Knights out of Rhodes. Suleiman’s army, commanded by Mustapha Pasha, had more than 30,000 men. The Order of St John had less than 9,000 men, led by Grand Master Jean de la Valette.
Fort St Elmo was at the entrance to the harbour of Malta. It was so small, only 400 men could defend it at a time. But the fort held out for over a month, killing 8,000 Turks in the siege. Mustapha Pasha was very angry indeed. When Fort St Elmo finally fell, he chopped the heads off the Knights and floated their bodies across the harbour to The Order of St John’s headquarters in Borgo. The Grand Master replied by firing the heads of Turkish prisoners into Mustapha Pasha’s camp.
After three more months of hard fighting, the Knights of St John were helped by 8,000 reinforcements from the island of Sicily. The Turks gave up and sailed away. In the year 1571 near a town called Lepanto the Turkish navy was destroyed. Grand Master Jean de la Valette was hailed as a hero. A new city was built on the island of Malta and it was named after him.
The city was called Valetta and it had a beautiful palace, many large churches and a huge hospital. The patients in this hospital were given the finest care in the world. The Knights of St John still sailed out to fight pirates and help Christians against the Turkish armies. But a hundred years later, the wars against the Turks were over, and the Knights had nothing else to do. When the French leader Napoleon came to Malta in the year 1798, the Knights surrendered the island of Malta to him without much of a fight.
This was almost the end of the Order of St John. The few Knights that were left spent some time in Russia. Then, in the year 1834, they finally settled in Rome. They are still there today, raising money for hospitals all over Europe. They call themselves the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM).
We do not really belong to this Order. Instead, we belong to the new English Tongue, or branch, of the Order of St John. In the year 1963, our branch of the Order signed a Concordat with SMOM.
It meant that the Most Venerable Order of St John and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta see each other as ‘cousins’. We have the same beginnings, and the same ends: to help people who are hurt or sick, and to follow the mottoes of the Order that were given to us by Raymond du Puy:
For the Faith, and
For the Service of Humanity.
6. The Tongue of England.
When Brother Gerard started the Order of Hospitallers in 1099, people from all over Europe wanted to join. Under Master Raymond du Puy, the Knights broke up into seven groups. The groups were called Langues, or Tongues. They were based on the languages that the Knights could speak, and the countries that they came from. The Tongue of England was one of these groups.
In the year 1144, some land in Clerkenwell, England was given to the Hospitallers. The English Tongue built their headquarters on this land and called it a Priory.
The Grand Prior was the head of the Hospitallers in England. He looked after all the lands that had been given to the Order of St John. One Grand Prior, called Sir Robert Hales, was asked by the King of England to collect tax money for his Government. But the people of England did not want to pay so much money. In 1380, some people burnt down the Priory headquarters of St John and they chopped the Grand Prior’s head off!
Much later, in the year 1504, a Grand Prior called Sir Thomas Docwra rebuilt the Gate House at Clerkenwell. Today, the Gate House is still the headquarters of the Order of St John.
In the year 1540, disaster struck. King Henry VIII of England had a fight with the Pope, and he broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. He took all of the Pope’s lands for himself. Because the Order of St John followed the Pope, King Henry VIII shut them down and stole their lands as well. When Grand Prior Sir William Weston heard of this, he died of grief.
7. The New Order of St John.
Nearly 300 years later, in 1831, some French Knights of St John met to restart the Order of St John in England. A committee meeting chose Reverend Sir Robert Peat to be the new Prior of the English Order. Seven years later, Sir Henry Dymoke became the first Grand Prior of England.
The new Order of St John in England was not a Roman Catholic Order, like it used to be. So the original Hospitallers (now called ‘The Sovereign Order of Malta’) refused to recognise the English group as a part of their Order*.
This meant that the English Order of St John could make their own rules. Under a Grand Prior called Sir William Drogo, the Order in England began to grow. In 1872, an ambulance service was formed in mining towns around England. This led to the start of a St John Ambulance Association in 1877. In 1887, a St John Ambulance Brigade of first-aid volunteers was formed. The St John Ophthalmic Hospital, which cares for people with eye diseases, opened in Jerusalem in 1882.
St John Ophthalmic (Eye) Hospital, Jerusalem
*It wasn’t until 1963 that the English Order of St John was formally recognised by SMOM.
Even the Royal Family of Queen Victoria was impressed with the work of St John. In 1888, Queen Victoria gave the Order a Royal Charter. This meant that the Order of St John was now a Royal Order of Chivalry, with the Queen as its leader and its patron. And ever since then, the Grand Prior of St John in England has been a member of the Royal Family.